Geek1945
Well-Known Member
It’s common knowledge gasoline and ethanol alcohol spelled trouble for 2 strokes. Running ethanol/methanol with castor oil has been used successfully for decades with model airplane 2 strokes glow engines. The problem is elementary chemistry covalent and polar compounds just don’t mix no matter how you mix them. Note: there are exceptions including additional additives yet, none have proven a 100% solution at reasonable cost.
Brazil has proven 4 stroke engines can run successfully on 100% alcohol but, require almost twice the volume to equivalent gasoline to do so. What’s worse the conversion of food based products for transportation flies against an ever increasing population.
1000’s of standby engine generators run on propane or natural gas with remarkably low emissions. But it still remains aircraft must run on petroleum because of energy density, meaning BTU’s per unit weight and simple lightweight storage containers have yet to be equaled. (Battery power is still an insignificant energy source per power to weigh and require an external energy source for recharging)
The purpose of adding alcohol, MTBE, and such to gasoline is reduced emissions by adding additional O2 during combustion further reducing unburned gasoline hydrocarbons. For both land and water based transportation the additional emission equipment weight is a manageable engineering problem. With aircraft it is not since weight is very critical in airplane design. This is not to say it’s insurmountable but, the losses in efficiency, safety, distance would far exceed land and water transportation vehicles.
As mentioned it would appear there is a miss allocation of energy resources. Just as coal fired locomotives were replaced with diesel/electric to double the efficiency and reduce emissions. It would appear LNG and propane both proven would be suitable alternatives to gasoline in both land and water based transportation. In fact most LNG carrying ships are already doing so. Propane is already used with success to replace gasoline and diesel. The use of these gasoline/diesel replacements currently are not suitable replacements in aircraft and especially those using 2 stroke engines. Rather than trying to make oil and alcohol mix to reduce emissions switching to abundant LNG/Propane would appear to make a lot more sense, leaving liquid petroleum available for aviation and aerospace.
Given jet engines will run on alcohol with little modifications even they would require a doubling of airplane fuel capacity. The increased weight of this extra fuel would decrease efficiency, and distance. So even here the use of alcohol or blended fuels is impractical especially considering alcohol’s hygroscopic abilities.
The human condition is to expect science to magically solve this dilemma by pulling a rabbit out of a hat, like using garbage in BACK TO THE FUTURE movie. Yet realistically until some energy source with equally high energy density and light enough to practically replace petroleum in aviation arrives, petroleum is the sole source for powered aviation. Saying this battery powered aircraft still has a very long lead time to exceed equivalent unit weight of gasoline or diesel.
Even gliders mostly rely on gasoline power to take off. So rather than our current allocation of energy sources, it seems a re-examination is in order. Ed
Brazil has proven 4 stroke engines can run successfully on 100% alcohol but, require almost twice the volume to equivalent gasoline to do so. What’s worse the conversion of food based products for transportation flies against an ever increasing population.
1000’s of standby engine generators run on propane or natural gas with remarkably low emissions. But it still remains aircraft must run on petroleum because of energy density, meaning BTU’s per unit weight and simple lightweight storage containers have yet to be equaled. (Battery power is still an insignificant energy source per power to weigh and require an external energy source for recharging)
The purpose of adding alcohol, MTBE, and such to gasoline is reduced emissions by adding additional O2 during combustion further reducing unburned gasoline hydrocarbons. For both land and water based transportation the additional emission equipment weight is a manageable engineering problem. With aircraft it is not since weight is very critical in airplane design. This is not to say it’s insurmountable but, the losses in efficiency, safety, distance would far exceed land and water transportation vehicles.
As mentioned it would appear there is a miss allocation of energy resources. Just as coal fired locomotives were replaced with diesel/electric to double the efficiency and reduce emissions. It would appear LNG and propane both proven would be suitable alternatives to gasoline in both land and water based transportation. In fact most LNG carrying ships are already doing so. Propane is already used with success to replace gasoline and diesel. The use of these gasoline/diesel replacements currently are not suitable replacements in aircraft and especially those using 2 stroke engines. Rather than trying to make oil and alcohol mix to reduce emissions switching to abundant LNG/Propane would appear to make a lot more sense, leaving liquid petroleum available for aviation and aerospace.
Given jet engines will run on alcohol with little modifications even they would require a doubling of airplane fuel capacity. The increased weight of this extra fuel would decrease efficiency, and distance. So even here the use of alcohol or blended fuels is impractical especially considering alcohol’s hygroscopic abilities.
The human condition is to expect science to magically solve this dilemma by pulling a rabbit out of a hat, like using garbage in BACK TO THE FUTURE movie. Yet realistically until some energy source with equally high energy density and light enough to practically replace petroleum in aviation arrives, petroleum is the sole source for powered aviation. Saying this battery powered aircraft still has a very long lead time to exceed equivalent unit weight of gasoline or diesel.
Even gliders mostly rely on gasoline power to take off. So rather than our current allocation of energy sources, it seems a re-examination is in order. Ed
